The students at the University of Colombo have started a project to help locate missing children. I wonder why there isn’t a central agency to locate missing children as in the USA? It certainly is not cost prohibitive to have one running and with all the aid coming in, this would be good thing to set up.

The Science Faculty students' union of University of Colombo has launched a project to help parents locate any missing children who they believe (with reasonable evidence) are still alive somewhere. The students have formed a task force where

(a) Students will put advertisements on newspapers (free of charge) on behalf of the parents (with the photographs of the children and the contact numbers of the parents as well as the student task force)

(b) Once leads to the whereabouts are known, the student task force will travel to the location (s), with the parents , investigate and then try and locate the child

The cost of the advertisements and travel etc. are sponsored by a Rotary Club in SL.

If you know of any parent who his trying locate his/her children lost as a result of the Tsunami, please contact the president of the Science Faculty Students' council (Duminda) at 0777417445 and give details of the parent who the student task force would then contact.

Please pass this email around for I belive this is a very noble effort through which, even if we get a hit rate of a single child reunited, the effort will be fully worth it !

Best
Dr. Kirthi Premadasa
Head
Dept. of Mathematics
University of Colombo